Hypocrisy in politicisation of cave saga

your say July 12, 2018 01:00

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Re: “Echoes of regime change in foreign coverage of cave drama”, Have Your Say, July 10.

The letter from “A Scandinavian” seems to strike a discordant note. The writer lambastes “pro-Western media in Thailand” for exploiting the plight of the boys trapped in the Chiang Rai cave. Yet the fact is the writer is also using this drama to project a particular political agenda. What exactly is meant by “pro-Western media”?

Even worse, the letter was penned while the fate of the last four boys and their coach still hung in the balance. How thoughtless and insensitive. Thank goodness they have since been rescued.

The writer was not even up to the challenge of setting out his or her own arguments, instead lifting whole sentences and paragraphs verbatim from the Moscow-based and virulently anti-Western “news” outlet Landdestroyer.

The suggestion that those Thai journalists whose reports are cited are incapable of independent thought, but are just paid stooges of Western governments, is ridiculous.

I would make one other point to underline the nonsense emanating from Landdestroyer. “A Scandinavian” quotes its claim that the work of The Nation’s cartoonist Stephff is “ignored”. Really? Over the years Stephff has been repeatedly attacked from both sides of Thailand’s political divide, proving not only that his cartoons attract considerable attention, but that he is doing his job very well.